


irresponsible uses of social media

by sky_kaijou



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! - All Media Types
Genre: Flirting, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Social Media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:33:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25980652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sky_kaijou/pseuds/sky_kaijou
Summary: How far will vague instagramming get you?
Relationships: Jounouchi Katsuya | Joey Wheeler/Kaiba Seto
Comments: 24
Kudos: 59





	irresponsible uses of social media

**Author's Note:**

> it's 2020, let me have my social media romance fantasy.

With Katsuya’s recent prize money, he’d afforded himself a single luxury – an upgrade into the Smartphone world. Not the most recent model, but last year’s flagship which served to be more than enough; a stellar camera, any number of messaging apps, the ability to keep up with duellists – and other fans in real time. The rest of his money went into reserves to pay bills or savings to guarantee his survival until the next tournament.

His new phone was _fascinating_ , finally logging into his Instagram account that he’d made years ago but never used. His first posts were quite mundane things like “gettin a coffee” with a picture of the cup, and sometimes at tournaments selfies of him and his friends, or a vague shot of the newest model of Duel Disk with something oddly poetic in the caption. The followers flocked and left plentiful messages under his photos. Some of them even propositions. Katsuya blushed but laughed at those the most.

The upsides with being connected were being able to keep up with the crew when they were out of town – now graduated and in the real world they’d been dispersing to Universities, Duelling Tournaments, Egypt, just to name a few. They’d always tag each other in funny memes and post memories of each other on their stories. There was also the added bonus of companies reaching out for sponsored posts, which Katsuya took a few of for passive income while he waited for the next rounds of Tournaments where he’d be sure to bag at least enough money to survive until the next round, and recently, as good as Second Place (when Yugi wasn’t around) which put him on stage many, many times with his archnemesis, Seto Kaiba, in his leggy arrogance and questionable fashion statements.

It went through this bell-curve of emotions, from passionate hate, to a nice middle ground. Now, coming out the other side of it, something had flipped in Katsuya’s core and looking at Seto, wow he really thought about him on a first name basis, standing on that podium giving an egotistical speech (not as egotistical as yesteryear) about never wanting to lose, and especially not to _him_ , caused his pulse to thump behind his ears.

So, Katsuya followed him on Instagram, as did most of Domino and anyone interested in Duel Monsters and Video Games, where he’d only periodically post aesthetic pictures that looked like the lovechild of the 1980’s and Cyberpunk. Common courtesy, right? People would talk if he _didn’t_. But for some reason, a few weeks later, Seto followed him back after standing beside him on the stage, only narrowing placing first by a measly 250 life points. For clout, maybe? But his follow list was only twenty-seven people big, and Katsuya knew all the names. (He, himself, followed twenty of them of the three-hundred-odd profiles he did follow back which were largely brands, other duellists, and his friends).

Close Stories was a setting that Katsuya had been using, choosing to keep some mystery from his fans but still wanting to update his friends on his everyday life. Most of it was mundane shit, like visiting his favourite cafes, or what games he was playing on the train to the next tournament, but still, he’d added Seto to the list not thinking much of it. Except when he noticed that Seto had been watching the stories too, like he had nothing better to do with his time.

Katsuya took the bait. If he was so unfortunate as to already be crushing ( ??? Was it a crush if it was this developed? Katsuya didn’t know. He thought crushes were meant to start off small and dissipate but then nothing made sense when it came to Seto Kaiba but he couldn’t exactly call this love, could he ??? ) then maybe he could push it just a little more towards the obvious. It started out small. A little bit of goading, posters of KaibaCorp merchandise with him throwing the middle finger and calling Kaiba a “rich prick” or selfies with Mokuba calling him the “nice Kaiba.” Sitting on his couch, he’d every-so-often look at who had “seen” his stories, hoping to see Seto’s username ping up. And by the twenty-third hour of being uploaded, without fail, his story would have been viewed.

Katsuya didn’t know why he felt so strongly towards just a fleeting moment of attention. Just that it felt like another stupid game that he was playing alone. But it entertained him and was harmless and nobody had seemed to react any differently, like they’d noticed he was posting or acting weird for a bit of unorthodox online flirting.

Until, a picture of Katsuya pulling a stern but brave face beside a movie poster got the inbox reply of ‘ _careful the wind doesn’t change._ ’

Katsuya nearly dropped his phone.

_‘Looks like yours already did.’_ Katsuya replied, sending a photo back that a tabloid had printed a week later of Kaiba scowling while looking down at his phone.

“Asshole.” Katsuya muttered to himself. But that didn’t stop him from scaling up his flirting a little more over the coming weeks. Vague aesthetic shots with lyrics from the early 2000’s. ‘ _Someday I'll appreciate in value, get off my ass and call you~_ ’ and ‘ _I’m writing you a chorus so here is your verse._ ’ And when a rumour about a girl swelled and quelled, a passive-aggressive message like ‘ _Yeah, I'm not one to get violent, I'm a pacifist, still lowkey, but I'm imagining my brains on his carpet.’_

He was pretty dense after all, Katsuya thought, but there’s no way he wouldn’t pick up on messages like that when they were on pulse with Seto Kaiba’s moves both on and off social media.

A picture of a marketing poster of the two of them photoshopped back to back with their monsters in the background. ‘ _How many straps does this guy need on his arms? Looks like he’s running a BDSM dungeon!’_ he comments about Kaiba’s fashion – is it fashion? – choice.

Katsuya is thankful he invested in a sturdy case when he dropped his phone from the reply from Seto himself. ‘ _Like the dog you are, I should chain you up._ ’

The lyrics became more direct. The rainbow-coding became more explicit. The digs became more personal. Yet Katsuya’s friends never commented. They interacted, sure. But there was no indication that they’d picked up on anything more than Katsuya going through a “phase.” Maybe it was just a phase. Working oneself up over just the hint of a social media dopamine hit. That for just ten seconds he might have the full attention of someone. Once a day. Once a week. It didn’t really matter, Katsuya was attention-starved despite the thousands of new followers every other week. Friends all over the globe now. And even in person, that dopamine hit differently.

He continued to play nice. Taking photos of Duel Monsters events, pictures with fans, promoting artwork, shots of not so personal things that were important to him like the bakery down the street with the best filled donut in the city. Sometimes fans would now approach him, but being Japanese, they were quite respectful and Katsuya was tagged in a thousand selfies.

Katsuya posted a private story of himself holding two samurai swords with the caption ‘ _ryoutou tsukai_.’ Kaiba reacted with a :o emoji and a ‘don’t hurt yourself.’

The bravest Katsuya will ever be in his life is when he replied ‘ _wanna come spar with me?_ ’

_‘In your dreams.’_

_‘Maybe so. :P’_

It grew almost exponentially from there. Seto Kaiba started vague-stagramming him back. He found himself added to a similar ‘close friends’ list. Light ribbing of pictures of dogs on his walk saying ‘ _reminds me of someone_ ’ or photos of Blue Eyes merch saying ‘ _Blue Eyes is clearly the better dragon._ ’

_‘Aesthetically, Red Eyes Black is much sexier.’_

_‘Aesthetics don’t win you duels, which you’d know, bonkotsu~’_

And so it continued, but daily now, for months. Weaving between press releases, tournaments, product launches, trips abroad, both together and apart, Christmas, birthdays, other moments of significance. Staying in rich hotels and duelling from morning to night. Pictures of banquets and stuffy investors. Both parties making relative fun of their situations. Slowly, Katsuya took friends that drifted apart off his ‘close friends’ list and left just a skeleton crew. And Seto remained which felt so strange. Strange that he couldn’t talk face-to-face without having this intense feeling thump in his fingertips. Yet he knew some of the most intimate moments of his life. Even the ones that weren’t so bright. Like when Katsuya’s bike got stolen. When his Seasonal Depression slapped him in his face. But it almost felt like the hesitation was both ways. Not exactly explicitly talking about his own mental health, but Seto would post gloomy photos once in a blue moon of rain running down windows saying ‘ _Is this week over? I could use a drink._ ’

Mokuba’s talking with Katsuya at a post-competition banquet while his phone lights up. A new story notification. Surely it’s not obsessive to have him on notification too? Right? He tried to justify it to himself but often moments disappear overnight as moods change and this is harmless. He opens it, and Mokuba curiously squints over Katsuya’s screen to watch.

“Is that my brother?” Mokuba says cautiously.

“Yeah! Weird he’s using Instagram so much these days.”

“I…didn’t know he was….” Mokuba trailed off with a stunned look. The post was clearly an innuendo, a tiny cupcake with cream and strawberries cut in half with a caption of _‘…one use for cream…_ ’ it was obvious he’d had a few drinks, and if Katsuya glanced up from time to time, there was a sparkling champagne in his hands. It was disappearing slowly; but disappearing all the same.

“Filthy!” Katsuya howled while Mokuba covered his eyes.

Katsuya took a photo of his room key with the hotel logo beside the window, while sipping on his second beer of the night. ‘ _The view is alright, I guess.’_ And he shook himself from thinking too much more of it for a few hours as he got swept up in conversations with duellists about life, love, and all things holy. The cupcakes were pretty delicious, and for a moment Katsuya giggled to himself. Twenty-year-old Seto Kaiba was really loosening up in his humour. Never get too drunk, Katsuya reminded himself as he reached for his third drink in two hours. He’d had a moment when he was eighteen in a country he could legally drink where he woke up in someone else’s room – nothing untoward, but certainly with pants on the floor and stains on his undershirt. He thanked the heavens his friends had been around for that.

Another story notification. A photo of his watch, captioned ’ _22:01. Let me show you the view._ ’ To the untrained eye that could mean anything, but that was the penthouse suite and Katsuya knew that because…because?

But maybe he was the only one seeing these messages? He couldn’t be sure without some cross-referencing.

The crowd was thinning out, climbing sloppily into elevators. Katsuya’s not too tired yet but it feels natural to gravitate that way slowly. He snaps another photo of crowds waiting in the lobby. _‘Nights ending. Or beginning. Matter of perspective.’_

“And which do you want?” Seto asks, hovering over Katsuya leaning against a wall finishing the dregs of his beer bottle. Dressed in business slacks and a vest. Katsuya is weak for a fitted vest that snatches him in the tiny waist. Katsuya notices a silver band on his index finger as the only other accessory.

“The night is still young,” Katsuya replies, flicking his gaze up to Seto. He clicks his tongue on the roof of his mouth. The lobby is eerily empty. Seto looks behind him before shoving Katsuya into the elevator and tapping his key card, gliding past Katsuya’s own 17th floor.

**Author's Note:**

> ryoutou tsukai 両刀使い means to wield two swords. It also means to be skilled in two fields. Or rather more bluntly, bisexual.


End file.
